18 Battalion and Armoured Regiment

CHAPTER 13 — Attack in the Desert

CHAPTER 13
Attack in the Desert

The offensive to be launched by the brand-new Eighth Army
in the Libyan Desert had one simple but sweeping main
aim, to chase the enemy out of Cyrenaica. For more than two
months material had been piling up and men had been
training, and now everything was nearly ready. It was important that the balloon should go up soon, because there were
signs that the enemy intended an offensive too.

The position in the desert was now more or less static. In
general the Axis forces were in Libya and the British in Egypt;
but at the coast end of the frontier, near Bardia, the enemy
possessed a small slice of Egypt stretching east from Sollum to
Halfaya Pass and south to Sidi Omar, 23 miles inland. In Libya
the British clung to Tobruk, isolated and hard pressed by the
encircling enemy. Most of the Germans and Italians were
within 25 miles of the coast; south of this was a vast desert,
empty but for a few oasis garrisons and some ‘recce units’
snooping round the countryside.

Eighth Army planned first of all to come to grips with the
main force of the enemy, destroy his armour and relieve-
Tobruk. To this end the British armoured corps (30 Corps)
was to make one of those ‘left hooks’ which later became the
classical British move in North Africa, thrusting through the
desert well inland, then swinging northwards towards Tobruk.

When the time was ripe most of 13 Corps (New Zealand
Division, 4 Indian Division, and I Army Tank Brigade)
would cross the frontier south of Sidi Omar and advance north
between Tobruk and Bardia on a minor left hook, to protect
30 Corps' supply line and cut off the enemy on the frontier.
Fourth Indian Division was to attack positions known as the
‘Omars’ at the south end of the enemy line, keep the enemy
occupied and prevent interference with the New Zealand
Division, which was to take a wider swing, push nearly 50
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miles north, and cut the main coast road west of Bardia. The
westernmost New Zealand brigade might later be required to
carry on towards Tobruk to help 30 Corps.

The rush and bustle of last-minute preparations was not so
pronounced this time as usual. For once 18 Battalion had
several days' warning of the move. On 8 November the men
were given battledress and an extra blanket; the 10th and 11th
the battalion spent getting ready, distributing three days'
food and water to every truck, completing its full ammunition
supply, ‘topping up’ petrol and oil. The morning of 12
November was taken fairly leisurely. The trucks were packed
by 10 a.m., and at midday, after an early lunch, the convoy
headed west along the main road. From Mersa Matruh the
route led south along the desert road towards Siwa, and then
west again. The trucks bounced over a dozen miles of rough
stones and dust before reaching their allotted place in the
north-west corner of the divisional assembly area. It was 8 p.m.
before the convoy arrived.

It would be natural to think of an assembly area as a mass
of vehicles, troops and guns, all together in a compact group.
But not so in the Egyptian desert. The Division was all together
in a group, but far from a compact one—it covered nearly 100
square miles, and some units could see their neighbours only
dimly, if at all. The trucks were widely dispersed, and round
them the desert was pimpled with ‘bivvy’ tents covering the
narrow ‘slitties’ which for a day or two were all that the men
could call home.

Here 18 Battalion spent two slightly fretful days lying in the
sun, wishing that it knew what was going on. The men were
inclined to grudge time spent idly at this stage. They were
looking forward to going into battle on equal terms with Jerry,
and, they hoped, giving him one in the eye to make up for
Greece and Crete. Most of the time British planes were overhead, travelling west towards the battle, holding out hopes that
this time the Luftwaffe would not have things all its own way. So
when the time came for the Division to move off again on 15
November everyone was eager to get cracking.

All day they travelled due west over stones and scrub.
‘The Division moving forward on the broad expanse of desert
plain,’ said one 18 Battalion man, ‘is a real marvellous sight;

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trucks on the left, right, front and rear, as far as the eye can
see, just rolling steadily forward.’ For the moment there was
no hurry, so for the sake of the springs and tyres the pace was
kept slow. It was pitch dark when the battalion reached its
night's bivvy area, and was directed in by the advance party
which had gone on ahead the previous day.

The Division was now south of Sidi Barrani, only some 55
miles from the frontier. There were rumours that enemy tanks
were within striking distance, and there were counter-rumours
that the enemy was pulling out and that the Division, once it
got going, wouldn't stop before Benghazi. Nobody was unhappy either way. The whole division, 18 Battalion not least,
had its tail up and was ready to tackle anything in the way of
Jerries. As for the ‘Ities’, well, they just weren't worth worrying
about.1

Fifty-five miles sounds only a step in terms of peacetime
motoring, but the Division took three bites at it. After 15
November the moves were all at night, with the pace dead
slow, only four miles in the hour. The drill was: leave after
dark (about 7 p.m.), grope your way along the dim line of
green lamps until midnight or 1 a.m., then stop and sleep till
daybreak, then get the trucks dispersed and slitties dug, pull
the heavy camouflage nets over the trucks, set up ack-ack
Bren guns, and make yourself as much like part of the landscape
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as possible for the day. The Division was now on a complete
battle footing, no lights or smoking at night, stand-to periods
morning and evening. What cooking there was (the rations
were mainly bully beef and biscuits) was nearly all done in
platoons over open petrol fires, and of course only in the daytime.

The camouflage nets were new. These huge, wide-mesh
cord nets, dark in colour and threaded with irregular strips of
scrim and cloth, did not claim to confer invisibility, but, by
softening the shadows and blurring the outlines, they made
vehicles harder to spot from above. They had other uses, too—
as the sun rose higher they provided welcome shade and relief
from the glare (though they weren't proof against the fine
swirling dust), and one morning, after a heavy dew, they did
duty as impromptu shelters under which lines of blankets were
hung to dry.

Under the conditions of the move, 25 miles a night was not
bad going, and every night some vehicles got lost, or had
punctures, or broke springs. During the second night move
there were thunderstorms away to the north; no rain, but
vivid lightning displays that spread strange shadows across the
desert and made it fatally easy for drivers to veer off course.
Next morning, for the first time, 18 Battalion heard a distant
growling away to the north-west, quite distinct from the
night's thunder. For most of the battalion it was the first sound
of guns in action. But it was still nothing but a sound, except
for half a dozen carriers, which for two or three mornings
escorted artillery observation officers out towards the fighting.
No shells actually fell near them, but they could clearly see the
bursts and smoke of gunfire on the enemy's positions at Sidi
Omar.

The 18th November was D-day for the Eighth Army's
attack, and at 9 p.m. 18 Battalion at last crossed the frontier.
The crossing was unexciting—earlier in the day sappers had
cut a great gap in the frontier barbed-wire fence, and the
convoy passed through quietly and quickly. After being keyed
up to their first invasion of enemy territory the men felt that
the reality was a bit of a flop. ‘The first thrill…soon died
away,’ said one. ‘Except for ourselves there wasn't a soul to be
seen and the country was just the same barren desert….’ The
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gunfire was nearer, but not very near yet. It was the coldest
night since Greece; men wrapped themselves up in greatcoats
and scarves and huddled together on the trucks, and still
shivered.

Next day, the first on Italian soil (or rather sand), was
equally disappointing, grey and dismal, causing a spate of
outspoken criticism of everything Italian. At first it promised to
be a repetition of the last three days, with nothing to do, but
later it turned out reasonably eventful. The YMCA truck
arrived with a supply of canteen goods, and relieved a
threatened tobacco shortage. Soon after lunch, as a relief from
the endless streams of British planes still patrolling overhead,
appeared a handful of cheeky Messerschmitts; they did not
attack 18 Battalion, but the men could see and hear them
strafing some unfortunate transport a mile or two away. The
ack-ack Brens opened up at them, and some of the carriers had
a crack with their guns, but nobody could see any results, for
the planes were over and away too fast.

This excitement had barely died away when the battalion
had to be up and doing at short notice, pack its trucks and race
away north-west across the desert. It was only a short move of 11
miles and was over in an hour, but it was in the right direction—
the unit stopped much nearer the gunfire. All that night the
rumbling went on, and those who woke during the night could
see flares going up on the horizon ahead.

This sudden move was to pull up level with 4 Indian
Division, which had made good progress that morning against
very little opposition. Not far away to the north-west the
nearest British armoured formation (4 Armoured Brigade) had
clashed with the German 21 Panzer Division that afternoon, and
had kept possession of the battlefield after a drawn battle. The
New Zealand Division was now lying ready to push north on
its original plan of cutting the coast road, with 4 Brigade as
its spearhead.

But this promising move led to nothing better in the meantime. All day on 20 November the Kiwis champed at the bit,
waiting in vain for orders to push on. From time to time sounds
of battle came down from the north, where both 15 and 21
Panzer Divisions were spending the day in inconclusive actions
against 4 Armoured Brigade. Rumours flew—at one stage the
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Indians had been roughly handled and the Kiwis would have
to go to their rescue; at another there were 200 enemy tanks
heading straight for 4 Brigade, a yarn which caused the dirt
to fly as men hurriedly dug their trenches a little deeper. But
no tanks appeared. The only sign of the enemy all day was one
lone bomber which came over at breakfast time, ran into a
whole skyful of Hurricanes, swung round smartly and made
off home, helped along by cheers from 18 Battalion just below.

By next morning the general situation had changed. The
German armour had gone, hurrying west to deal with 30
Corps' dangerous thrust towards Tobruk, and everything was
quiet up north. During the morning 13 Corps was ordered
to carry on with its northward push. This news, when it
penetrated down to the lower levels, was met with glad
approval. The enemy, it seemed, was on the run, and the
Division was going to follow up and be in at the kill. It was a
keen, optimistic, fighting fit division that packed its trucks,
oiled its weapons, swallowed a hasty lunch, and made ready to
set out.

The brigades were to advance at first along the same axis,
then to deploy something like a flower unfolding—5 Brigade,
in the lead, was to wheel to the right and tackle the enemy in
the frontier forts; then 4 Brigade was to push straight through,
cut the coast road eight miles west of Bardia, and take a firm
grip of the escarpment overlooking that road; last would come
6 Brigade, which would swing west and eventually move on to
support 30 Corps near Tobruk.

It was 1.30 p.m. on 21 November when 4 Brigade moved
northwards on its 33-mile run to the escarpment west of
Bardia—it was nearly daylight on the 22nd when it arrived.
Even during the afternoon the brigade couldn't get into top
gear, as 5 Brigade, just in front, was manoeuvring for its right
wheel; to the men, not knowing what was happening ahead,
the pace was maddeningly slow, and harsh, unjustified things
were said about the incompetence of those responsible. But
after dark the difficulties really began.

Desert navigation on a pitch black moonless night is hard
enough in itself. But on top of this, recent rain had turned
stretches of normally dry ground into swamp. At 7 p.m. 18
Battalion struck trouble somewhere near the Trigh Capuzzopage 187
(a wide east-west desert track). Many of the trucks stuck in
soft slush, and either fought their way out or were ignominiously dragged out by the carriers or some nearby tanks.
Others, in dodging the worst parts, lost their place in the
convoy; it took several hours to sort it out again, and fresh
patches of marsh kept cropping up to cause more confusion.
Later in the night the unit struck another snag, a half-finished
anti-tank ditch crossing the line of advance where no ditch
should have been. Here again most of the trucks found themselves floundering in the mud, and again the unit's workhorses,
the carriers, turned to and toiled to haul them out. D Company,
travelling in the rear, was lucky enough to find a way round
to the right of the mud, and a small procession of other
vehicles followed round the same way and reached firm ground
beyond the ditch. They were only about eight miles from the
objective now, and the trucks moved on in any sort of order,
assembled and formed up again as best they could a little
distance ahead. Everybody was haggard with the night's
exertions with shoulder and shovel, sleepless except for fitful
dozing between halts, and achingly hungry, for there had been

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no meal the evening before. A quick breakfast was now thrown
together and eaten wolfishly, but there was no chance of sleep.
Within an hour 18 Battalion was on the move, sorting itself
out into desert formation, pushing on towards the escarpment
in the first light of dawn.

The unit halted a good mile short of the escarpment, too far
back to enjoy the turmoil caused by supporting artillery among
German supply troops camped on the plain below; but in any
case it would probably have paid little attention, for it was
occupied with an interesting diversion of its own, nothing less
than a German ordnance depot and transport repair park
handed to it on a plate. This was first discovered just after
dawn by the carrier platoon, as recounted by Corporal Dick
Bishop:

Our section moved out with Capt. Atchley2 of the artillery.
We stopped to boil up a few hundred yards out and found as the
light improved, that we were right alongside a recently vacated
(as we thought) German camp. While we were boiling up Capt.
Atchley wandered off…and walked right into a small party
of Huns who promptly grabbed him and made off. By the time we
set out to look for him he was well away and there was not a
Hun in sight. We had noticed dozens of them standing about
at the other end of the camp and could easily have rounded up
a hundred or more of them. We did at any rate get a certain
amount of loot and spent an hour or two rummaging through the
packs and bivvie tents.

Almost simultaneously the rifle companies, having debussed
and moved forward to dig in, found the camp right on the spot
where they were to go, and hastened up to investigate just as
the Jerries, coming to panic-stricken life, evacuated the place
in cars and trucks, some in pyjamas, some half dressed, leaving
everything behind, including their hot breakfast stew. Apart
from a few sluggards, no prisoners were taken, but there were
more stores than 18 Battalion could ever hope to carry away.
This was the first time the unit had ever got in among the loot
to any extent, and some of the boys overdid it a bit, carrying
off heavy articles such as typewriters that had to be discarded
later.

Twentieth Battalion was now lining the escarpment on 18
Battalion's left, with a company across the main road down
below. There seemed little serious opposition on the immediate
front. Eighteenth Battalion was directed to stay where it was,
but was to send a strong patrol to clean up a pocket of Germans
thought to be holding the escarpment at Point 216 (two miles
east), and to reconnoitre farther on towards Bardia.

At 8 a.m. B Company, plus a section of carriers, rode out
east with orders to go ahead till fired on, then to keep up the
advance on foot. It was impossible to drive fast, as the ground
was rough and cut with little wadis running down to the
escarpment, but there was nobody at Point 216, and 10
Platoon descended the escarpment and pushed on towards the
wire defences of Bardia. Surprisingly, even here it was not
fired at; the platoon took a good look at the defences from 200
yards away, and reported back that there were outposts every
two chains behind the wire and a working party out in front.
Later in the day B Company had a few shells tossed at it, but
returned intact to the battalion just in time to join the next
move.

Shortly after B Company had left, the other company and
platoon commanders also went out to ‘recce’ routes to Bardia,
on orders from Brigadier Inglis, who planned a quick attack
on the position. The ‘recce’ parties went to a point where they
could overlook the Bardia defences, but came under fire, and
got back to find that their labour had been wasted, as there
would be no attack after all. The general feeling among the
officers who had been forward was one of great relief; those
defences had looked pretty formidable, and the idea of a
frontal attack on them had not been at all attractive.

Apart from these excursions the battalion spent the day
idly, feeling that the party had gone flat after a promising
opening. The artillery kept on banging away, and later in the
day return fire came from enemy guns somewhere away to the
north-east; and the men could hear interesting noises down
below the escarpment, where 20 Battalion had some lively
exchanges with a German rearguard. Eighteenth Battalion,
well back from the cliff top, could take no direct part in this
activity, but could only wait for something to happen. If
this was desert warfare, thought 18 Battalion, there was not
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much to it. Some of the boys were even kicking a football about.
For the first time since the battalion had entered Libya there
weren't many planes to be seen, only an odd few, both British
and German, overhead from time to time.

It was after 3.30 p.m. before anything happened, and then
it was most unexpected—orders from 4 Brigade to move westwards at once. Westwards, right away from Bardia, which had
so far been the focus of attention. There was no time to speculate on the meaning of this about-face. Orders flew out to
companies, men snapped out of their afternoon lethargy, and
by 4 p.m. the battalion was on its way.

What had happened was this: 6 Brigade, to the west of 4
Brigade, had had a sudden call westwards to Sidi Rezegh,
south-east of Tobruk, where advance troops of 30 Corps were
in serious difficulties now that the German armour had moved
across. Sixth Brigade had to move that night straight for the
danger area, disregarding any enemy it might meet on the way.
Major-General Freyberg then ordered 4 Brigade to back up
6 Brigade, clearing out opposition as it went, particularly at
Gambut, halfway between Bardia and Tobruk, where the
Luftwaffe was still using a landing ground. This meant that the
attack on Bardia had to be shelved, but 20 Battalion was to
stay meanwhile and keep an eye on the Bardia defences, and
5 Brigade also was to remain at the frontier.

To Gambut, as the crow flies, was 26 miles, but any self-respecting crow would fly much faster than a convoy could
make its way across the broken ground on top of that escarpment. That afternoon 18 Battalion, jolting along behind 19
Battalion, covered ten miles (half of them in the dark), then
stopped for the night, not yet knowing what it was to do next
day.

Anyone suddenly transported to 18 Battalion's laager at
daybreak on 23 November would have been hard to convince
that the unit was in the middle of a bold advance through
enemy territory. Everything was quiet, hardly another vehicle
in sight except 19 Battalion away on the western horizon, not
even a plane anywhere except a crashed British bomber. The
move did not begin again immediately; there was time to have
a leisurely breakfast, during which the day's orders arrived,
closely followed by two heartening squadrons of British
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Matilda tanks (44 Royal Tank Regiment) and a squadron of
Divisional Cavalry's light tanks. Three-quarters of an hour
later 18 Battalion moved off, now leading 4 Brigade, going
into action for the first time behind an armoured screen.

The column really looked the part now. First a line of light
tanks, then one of big, businesslike Matildas, then the battalion
carriers scurrying round the desert like terriers, then more
Matildas preceding the lorries which carried C and A
Companies. Battalion Headquarters was in the middle of the
rifle companies, followed by B, D, and the rest of HQ
Company. The battalion was to make straight for Gambut
airfield, occupy it and consolidate there, while other troops
pushed north from it and cut the coast road. Halt, said the
operation order, only when forced. C and A were to be the
assaulting companies, going forward on foot if necessary to
capture the airfield, after which the rest would come up.

Not far from the starting point the force took a winding
track down an escarpment (lower and less steep than farther
east) and set off across a flat stony plain as straight as possible
for where Gambut should be. The airfield, so the map said,
was 16 miles away, near the top of another abrupt escarpment
which fell away to the north. But they hadn't gone much more
than six miles when enemy guns suddenly opened up from the
top of the southern escarpment, and shells began to burst
among the trucks.

Being shelled in vehicles, any infantryman will tell you, is one
of the most unnerving of all experiences, more frightening than
lethal. Only very heavy shellfire does much damage to a well
dispersed convoy. But sitting away up there on the back of a
truck, without the friendly protection of a slit trench, you feel
naked and terribly exposed, and there is nothing you can do
about it. This was the first time it had happened to 18
Battalion, and many a prayer was muttered that it might be
the last.

There were only three or four guns and a few armoured
cars on the escarpment, but it was enough to delay 4 Brigade
for an hour. The vehicles stopped, the men gratefully tumbled
out and scratched themselves shallow holes in the ground.
‘Before I could say debus,’ says Lieutenant Phillips,3 ‘my
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Platoon was out and in formation faster than they did during
training!’ Then the brigade's supporting artillery went into
action; the first shots landed fair and square among the enemy
on the skyline, and he ceased fire almost at once and pulled
back westwards. A 19 Battalion patrol followed and reported
the way clear. Eighteenth Battalion had had two men killed in
those first few sticky minutes, but the trucks had only a stray
hole here and there.

From there it was plain, though dusty, sailing to Gambut.
The tanks and carriers could see ahead a few groups of trucks,
evidently caught unawares by the advance, hurrying off in
disorder, but this sight was hidden from the riflemen, whose
horizon was limited to the little squares of sky and desert
visible through the back of the lorries. No more shells came
near, though the men could hear occasional outbreaks of
firing from behind them whenever our artillery opened up,
and from the left, where 19 Battalion was having a continuous
running fight with the German rearguard all the way along
the escarpment.

Three miles from the airfield C and A Companies left their
lorries and covered the next half mile on foot. There was still
an ominous silence ahead; at any moment, thought everyone,
the Jerries who were sure to be defending the airfield would
open fire. But they did not. Divisional Cavalry, patrolling
ahead, found only a few enemy detachments, who, so far from
offering fight, withdrew hastily at sight of the tanks. Lieutenant-Colonel Peart thereupon ordered his companies back into the
vehicles again, for why walk when you can ride? The ease of
it was quite disconcerting to 18 Battalion, who had been all
keyed up for a fight. Before long the companies were riding on
to the airfield itself, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the
rows of German planes, silent and innocuous, which stood
deserted there.

By 4 p.m. the battalion was consolidating on the airfield,
occupying old German positions on the western boundary
with C Company to the north and A to the south. Divisional
Cavalry was still patrolling westwards. C and D Companies
had cleared the control buildings on the northern edge; D
Company was now occupying them and lining the escarpment,
which fell away 100 feet just beyond the buildings. B was in
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reserve on the open field left of D. On the escarpment edge
were the carriers and an attached section of Vickers guns, all
firing downhill at enemy posts on the main road and a small
side road which wound down the escarpment from the airfield. A troop of 25-pounders farther back was also in the party.
German mortars and small-calibre guns were firing back, but
it was only speculative shooting and fairly harmless, as Jerry
had no observation over the airfield.

The show was absolutely deserted when we drove in. It was a
noble sight, we passed thousands of neatly stacked bombs then
drove over the airfield to the tents and buildings on the other
side. Someone started shelling us from the road so we debussed
and the Coys. went forward while the rest of us started investigating. Near the repair sheds there were about 30 damaged
German planes…. Some had obviously crashed and had been
brought in probably for spare parts but many had been damaged
on the ground by our R.A.F. because you could see bomb holes
and shrapnel all over the place. But our natural instinct for loot
and booty soon led us into the many tents and dugouts round the
area. In half an hour most of us were running round in a weird
assortment of German and Italian clothing. All of us were smoking
German or Italian cigarettes or cigars. Others had got abandoned
lorries, cars and motor bikes going while some fortunate few had
bagged automatic pistols. We had a marvellous time and although
looting is not in accordance with army regulations we were
allowed a fairly free rein.

Richards adds that when 18 Battalion left Gambut its transport was ‘supplemented by one German breakdown truck, an
Opel car, and a couple of motor bikes’.

There was leisure that afternoon to have a good look around.
C Company had captured a disabled car whose occupants had
departed in a hurry, leaving everything behind. The control
buildings were a rich prize, full of every kind of gear, and men
from all the companies flocked there. Many of them scored
cameras, binoculars and Luger pistols, always the most
valued items. There was plenty of water, brackish but
perfectly good for washing; and there was food enough to
more than satisfy a battalion which had existed for a week on
light rations. These were the kind of pickings that every good
Kiwi dreams about.

The shooting died down that night. The battalion had
pickets and roving patrols out, but all was peace until morning,
when the shelling began again. This time there was one
awkward heavy gun somewhere over the southern escarpment,
which lobbed an occasional shell into C and D Companies, but
it was not heavy shelling, and there was only one casualty.
A watchful eye was kept on the enemy down by the main road,
and there was little trouble from that direction.

The next move was unknown. There was a pretty general
suspicion that the unit had ‘had’ Bardia and was to carry on
westwards, but this speculation was not confirmed till just
before noon on 24 November, when orders were sent out to
the companies to move on that afternoon. The general situation
had changed very much for the worse—30 Corps had met
with disaster at the hands of the German armour, and the
Tobruk ball had been thrown to the New Zealand Division.

At 3.30 p.m. 18 Battalion left Gambut, still at the head of
4 Brigade, moving as usual in desert formation, with the tanks
out in front and the carriers on the right flank skirting the top
of the escarpment.

The afternoon's advance was over a particularly flat,
deserted, featureless stretch, the sort of ground on which it is
impossible to tell just where you are. One kilometre from the
day's objective (or, anyway, from where it was thought to be)
the men debussed, left the transport to laager where it was,
and walked the rest of the way, grumbling at having to pad
the hoof when there wasn't a German within miles. Circulations
were livened up for a while by this short walk, but by morning
everyone was very cold, and enthusiasm for desert warfare
was definitely on the wane, even more so when the battalion
had to climb on to its lorries again and move on without
breakfast.

Fourth Brigade, all together again now and still led by 18
Battalion, was moving along a sort of step in the desert, a flat
plateau three to five miles wide, bounded by one escarpment
falling away to the north and another (the Sidi Rezegh
escarpment, now famous in the New Zealand Division's
history) rising in a long line to the south. On top of the Sidi
Rezegh escarpment was 6 Brigade, still a little way ahead, but
involved in furious, costly fighting which from time to time
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could dimly be heard from down below. Fourth Brigade's job
was now to draw level with 6 Brigade and press on westwards
to break the enemy ring round Tobruk and join up with its
defenders. Just how hard this was going to be nobody knew
yet—4 Brigade was sure to strike trouble not far ahead, just as
6 Brigade had, and would have to butt its way through that
trouble, unless some miracle happened.

The early morning advance on 25 November, though only
three miles, brought 18 Battalion into populated country again,
and to the beginning of its troubles. From a depression on the
right flank the screening tanks rounded up a band of bewildered Jerries, about 150 of them, and passed them back to
18 Battalion, who received them gladly, briefly looked them
over for any binoculars or watches that the tankies might have
missed, then packed them off back to Brigade Headquarters.
Things were looking up when perfectly good Germans surrendered without a fight; the prestige of the tanks was for the
moment very high.

It soon became obvious that this happy state of affairs
was not permanent. Shells began to fall among the lorries;
Lieutenant-Colonel Peart ordered the companies down on to
their feet, and forward they went across the bare ground,
spreading out into open formation as they did so, C and A
Companies leading, D and B behind. Suddenly the tanks on
the left flank ran into a well hidden anti-tank gun over a ridge
of high ground which ran diagonally across the line of advance.
The carriers hastened up and joined in the fight from behind
the crest of the ridge, but almost at once came under mortar
and machine-gun fire from among the stones and camel thorn
ahead. Here, obviously, was a resolute little group which
might take some dislodging—several tanks and a portée already
bore scars as evidence of the anti-tank gunners' skill.

But there are times when infantry can do what armour
cannot, and this was one of them. A and B Companies lined
the ridge while the carriers retired; the battalion mortars
sprang into action and plastered the enemy; and forward to the
attack went two platoons, 8 Platoon of A Company heading
straight for the enemy and 10 Platoon of B Company working
round to the left. The Germans, far from being intimidated,
let loose a fusillade that forced 8 Platoon to the ground, but
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10 Platoon, in Sgt Bill Kennedy's5 words, ‘kept on in excellent
training style, one section down while two advanced and even
the 2″ mortar in action. The mortar men… dropped their
first round slap on one M.G. position.’ There was also a 3-inch
mortar in support, with RSM Eric Firth6 directing its fire.
No. 10 Platoon was now round the flank, and with both
platoons converging on them the defenders broke and ran,
leaving their wounded and their heavier equipment and
weapons. About thirty prisoners were rounded up. The action
had been short, swift and unexpected. The German prisoners
were unkempt and hungry, but the anti-tank gun (though now
useless after a direct hit from a Matilda) was a prize indeed.
A hard-won prize, for 8 and 10 Platoons had lost a lot of
wounded, including Second-Lieutenants Rawley7 and Christianson.8

The enemy, it seemed, wasn't prepared to carry on a stand-up fight here. Under shellfire he slowly retired west, but his
own long-range shells kept whistling in, dozens of them. For a
while the situation was most uncomfortable. But the morning
advance had evidently caught Jerry on the wrong foot.
The shelling gradually eased off as he withdrew. The 18 Battalion
carriers, feeling forward later in the day, picked up a few stray
prisoners but met no opposition.

Jerry did not withdraw far. All day 18 Battalion's forward
troops had a fine view of him digging hard three or four miles
ahead, and it was a shame that the artillery was short of
ammunition and so could not ‘tickle him up’ as much as it
would have liked. The outlook for 18 Battalion was not good,
for these Germans were fair and square in its way, and the next
advance would take it right through them. Just behind the
enemy, opposite the battalion's right flank, rose a low hill,
hardly worthy of the name anywhere else, but a distinctive
feature in that table-top landscape. Nobody looking at this
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humble bump on the ground would have guessed that it
would earn an undying place in the history of the New Zealand
Division, but that was destined to happen before many more
days passed—the name of the feature was Belhamed.

It was fairly obvious that 18 Battalion would have to push on
again almost at once, so nobody was surprised when orders
came through late that afternoon for a night attack on
Belhamed. Nobody was surprised, but nobody was pleased,
for everyone had seen the Germans swarming on the flat ahead,
and the thought of heading straight into them in cold blood
was not pleasant. But that was the only way. The whole
division was to move west that night and make its big effort to
join hands with Tobruk. Sixth Brigade would attack along and
down the Sidi Rezegh escarpment and make the actual contact
with the Tobruk garrison at Ed Duda, four miles west of
Belhamed. But this contact would be firm and useful only if
Belhamed was in our hands, and this was 4 Brigade's job.

So far this campaign had been a gentleman's war for 18
Battalion, mainly riding in state in lorries with only occasional
opposition—food might have been a bit short and lacking in
variety, but there had been no bitter fighting as in Crete, no
exposure to stinging wind and rain as in Greece. Even when
there had been fighting the tanks had taken the edge off it
before it reached the infantry. But the night advance to
Belhamed was to be different. A straight-out silent attack with
the bayonet, infantry face to face with infantry, no trucks, no
tanks, no artillery except a few salvoes to help the attackers
keep direction. Eighteenth and 20th Battalions were to share
Belhamed between them, and tanks, carriers, artillery observers
and all the rest would come up in the morning. Lieutenant-Colonel Kippenberger of 20 Battalion would command both
units during the attack and on the objective.

As zero hour approached, a half moon emerging at intervals
from clouds lent enough light for the companies to see what
they were doing. None of the usual laughing and skylarking,
no smoking, only the rustle of men moving and the murmur of
low voices as they formed up. C Company on the right, A on
the left, with D and B behind, and Battalion Headquarters,
signallers, mortars and pioneers in the centre. Then they were
away, long files of men in close formation going slowly forward,
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every one with a pick or shovel on his back, riflemen with
bayonets fixed and bandoliers slung from their shoulders,
Bren-gunners loaded up with spare magazines, officers with
compass in hand checking direction, ‘sigs’ with their No. 18
sets or with telephones and wire. The battalion had practised
and practised such an approach march until the drill was as
perfect as it could be, and there was curiously little difference
between the training and the real thing.

It was only four miles to Belhamed, but distances at night
seem at least twice as far as by day. On and on they went,
stumbling over stones, their burdens getting heavier and
heavier. Surely, they thought, they must have overshot the
mark—and then machine guns spoke up from a rise in front,
and they were in the middle of the enemy.

Corporal Ralph Joyes9 of D Company speaks for every man
in the battalion that night when he says:

Never ever will I forget that approach march…. It seemed
endless and I think that most of us were pretty well done when we
actually got into the real thing. Even then we saw nothing but
tracer which seemed to pass by us on all sides. The noise was
terrific with most of us yelling our heads off.

For a little while all was confusion, 18 Battalion smashing
its way through the enemy with bullet, grenade and bayonet,
even sometimes with rifle butts. It was Galatas all over again,
this time not hemmed in by streets and walls but out in the
wide open spaces. Some men fell dead or wounded, but for
each 18 Battalion casualty revenge was exacted several times
over. The battalion had the whip hand in that mêlée; the
Germans were caught only half ready, a lot of their firing was
wild, and some were shot down before they could even get into
action. Only a few prisoners were taken, most of them wounded.

Then, quite suddenly it seemed, the opposition melted away,
and the forward companies found themselves out in the clear,
with only sporadic firing going on here and there as a sort of
afterthought. The other companies and Battalion Headquarters
weren't far away—the whole unit had kept remarkably well
together throughout the long approach and the scrap in the
German lines, though B and D Companies had tended to
overrun the forward companies during the fighting.

Only a little farther now, and then the companies halted an
the order was passed down to dig in. Evidently they were on
the objective, although it looked very like any other piece of
desert. The moon had set, and you could not see far beyond
your nose. The men began to dig—and then discovered the
peculiar perverse quality of Belhamed. A few inches down was
solid rock.

It was before midnight when the battalion halted on
Belhamed, and from then nearly to dawn the men toiled and
sweated to get underground. Luckily the enemy seemed to
have pulled back. But as for digging themselves in, all many of
the men could do was to hack out hunks of rock and build
‘sangars’ above ground, some protection certainly, but poor
substitutes for slit trenches. Their navvying finished, the men
at last had time to draw breath and realise that it was cold. A
biting wind was sweeping the plateau, and the battalion,
minus blankets and greatcoats, had to crouch there in the dark
and take it. By sunrise everyone was nearly frozen.

When it became light enough to see, it was clear that 4
Brigade had indeed reached its objective, but was holding only
the northern edge of the Belhamed ‘bump’, 18 Battalion on the
eastern part and 20 Battalion on the western, both units
bunched into fairly small areas, not far apart. C and D
Companies of the 18th were right on the lip of the northern
escarpment, with a wide view of the country below, and A and
B Companies a couple of hundred yards farther south, B
Company in touch with 20 Battalion. But nobody had much
leisure to inspect the position in detail. With daylight came
mortar bombs, shells and bullets, pouring in from all sides
except the east. After the easy war of the last few days the
battalion had a rude awakening now. It had truly run into a
hornets' nest, and the hornets were full of fight and determined
to sting these invaders to death. The battalion was terribly
exposed, and almost at once casualties began to mount up.
Captain Mackay of B Company was among the first, as was
Lieutenant-Colonel Kippenberger, both wounded about 7
a.m. by machine-gun fire which suddenly swept A and B
Companies. The same burst of fire killed CSM Lance Preston10 of B Company.

It was still dark when the supporting tanks, carriers, anti-tank and Vickers guns, and 18 Battalion's own B Echelon
transport set out for Belhamed, but dawn caught the column
halfway, and German artillery below the escarpment to the
north began to plaster it. Most of the column had to stop and
take what cover it could in wadis; the tanks and carriers pushed
on to Belhamed, but the tanks were engaged by a group of
German anti-tank guns to the south the moment they poked
their noses over the lip of the escarpment. In a very short time
the guns claimed five victims. The remaining tanks spent about
half an hour on Belhamed engaging the guns, then withdrew
east again, and their part in the day's fighting was over. The
battalion was on its own again until, later in the morning,
its anti-tank and Vickers guns and 3-inch mortars somehow
forced their way through to the northern edge of Belhamed,
where the broken top of the escarpment afforded a little cover.
The battalion was delighted to have them there. The infantry
would also have been more than pleased to see its own unit
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transport with some hot food, greatcoats and blankets aboard,
but that was impossible during the day. This was the first
time in the campaign that the fighting troops of 18 Battalion
had been separated from their ‘B Ech’; they missed all the
little extra amenities that went with the trucks, but it was no
good growling about it.

The infantrymen could do little all day but lie in their
slitties or sangars, as every inch of the ground was under
observation and any movement attracted fire. But the carriers
were invaluable. Not only did they bring the 3-inch mortars
the last part of the way up to Belhamed, but they also ran
‘mercy missions’ from the companies to the RAP with wounded
men who otherwise could not have been evacuated till dark—
in those conditions it was next to impossible for stretcher
bearers to work. As it was, the wounded were made as
comfortable as possible at the RAP in a ravine on the escarpment, and were sent back that night to the dressing station.

Another group that found conditions pretty well impossible
that day was the ‘sigs’. They had taken telephone gear with
them, and laid lines to the companies before dawn, but the
shelling soon chopped these lines about, and all the linesmen's
efforts could not keep them in operation, as each repair would
be followed soon afterwards by a fresh break. Finally they had
to give up. From then on most communications on Belhamed
were by wireless—the No. 18 sets functioned well, and no
major difficulties arose, though every company headquarters
became convinced after a while that Jerry was using its
particular wireless aerial as an aiming mark.

There is little need to describe the misery of the men on
Belhamed, cold, hungry, and harassed by fire every time they
poked their heads up. They could retaliate to some extent
with mortar and machine-gun fire, but none of this seemed to
have much effect. From daybreak there were artillery observers
forward on top of the escarpment, and requests for shellfire
poured in continuously from the companies; but the artillery
could not give these really satisfactory attention, as their
ammunition was so short that they were forced to limit their
fire to essential and emergency targets.

Most of the shells were coming from the north, where the
Germans had artillery (including some big 5.9-inch guns) on the
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low ground. But south of Belhamed, where the ground sloped
gently down to the foot of the Sidi Rezegh escarpment, was
a pocket of very alert enemy, aggressive and well armed,
untouched the previous night. Belhamed and Sidi Rezegh
could not possibly be held in comfort while this pocket was
there. But no active steps were taken against it immediately.
The command system of 18 and 20 Battalions was temporarily
out of gear, and it was some hours before Colonel Peart more
or less unofficially took over both units and began to make
plans for the future welfare of the troops on Belhamed. There
was no chance of doing anything constructive about the pocket
that day, but Peart had it on the agenda as an urgent item.
In the meantime, reconnaissance patrols went out as far as
possible in that direction, and both battalions did their best to
keep the pocket under fire, though it was out of mortar range
and too well dug in for effective machine-gunning.

One patrol in particular, a small D Company ‘recce’ party
led by Lieutenant Phillips, went a long way out towards Sidi
Rezegh, passed within sight of the pocket, and even had a short
argument with a German car containing two officers, but
eventually got back without a shot fired at it. Not only did it
report details of Jerry's position, but it also stumbled on a
minefield, a long belt of Teller mines running north and south
just west of the highest part of Belhamed. A few days later 18
Battalion was to make very good use of those same mines.

As the battalion lay hugging the earth and cursing, there
were a few bitter inquiries about the wonderful air support
that the Division had been promised at the outset of the
campaign. It was not till the afternoon of 26 November, in
answer to repeated calls for help, that two flights of Blenheim
bombers with supporting fighters appeared and bombed to the
north of Belhamed, to the accompaniment of loud cheers from
4 Brigade. On the other side, there was a cheeky little German
reconnaissance plane that hovered over Belhamed, ignoring the
rifle fire that poured up at it from all angles, and even landed
once not far from 20 Battalion. Late that afternoon it came
back once too often, for this time the rifles did their work, and
the plane crashed near the transport lines.

Before setting out for Belhamed the previous night the men
had had a hot meal, which was just as well, for they had to
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exist till after dark on the 26th on the small stocks of bully,
biscuits and water they carried with them. In the evening,
when the shooting slackened off, carrying parties brought a
meal up from B Echelon, and never were they more gratefully
welcomed—except in B Company, whose party was snapped
up by a stray German patrol somewhere on the way forward.
Gradually over the next few days greatcoats and blankets were
brought forward, and they made a great difference to morale.
They could not ward off the mortar bombs, but they could
and did keep you from ‘seizing up’ in the bitter nights and
damp days that followed.

Eighteenth and 20th Battalions were certainly very uncomfortably placed on Belhamed, but they were in clover
compared to 6 Brigade, which hadn't been able to sweep the
enemy off the Sidi Rezegh escarpment, let alone push on to
Ed Duda. That brigade spent 26 November in furious fighting,
three battalions perched up on the escarpment and one below,
on the same step as Belhamed, but entirely surrounded by the
enemy at close range. It had terrible losses—so heavy that
General Freyberg cancelled its Ed Duda orders and passed
them over to 4 Brigade. That night 19 Battalion, plus the
ever-ready Matilda tanks, came forward from reserve, advanced past Belhamed so quietly that 18 and 20 Battalions
hardly heard it, and pushed on to Ed Duda with a most
astonishing lack of opposition, to meet British troops from
Tobruk.

So 27 November dawned with the Tobruk corridor formed
at last, a narrow unstable corridor, but an undeniable link
between besieged Tobruk and the outside world. The New
Zealand Division's immediate objective was won, and now it
had to extend the corridor and make it usable. This was plainly
not going to be easy. The German armour was away at the
Egyptian frontier, ordered from the main scene of action by a
wild decision of Rommel's, but it couldn't be expected to be
away for ever, and the German and Italian infantry formations
left to guard Tobruk were fighting for their lives, and fighting
well. The stage was all set for calamity, and the question was—
for which side?